Fated Journey's
by urbanamore
Summary: Does an addition to the Fellowship necessarily mean everything will change? Will things just be for the better? How will it affect people? Pippin/OC & others. Tenth walker/Mary Sue fic, with numerous OCs along the way. Rated T for later violence.
1. Chapter 1

I miss the Shire. I miss the apple tree that we would spend summer nights laid out under, watching the stars. I miss the fields where we would run around, laughing and playing without a care in the world. I miss my little brother and the way he would always ask me to tell him bedtime stories. I miss the Brandywine River where we would go to fish and paddle on the hot days. I miss going to The Green Dragon and seeing Merry and Pippin dance on the tables. I miss home.

But I have gotten ahead of myself here, and I will go back to the beginning, when I, Willow Brandybuck, was in the Shire and when things weren't so complicated, back to a time when I was just another hobbit, living off of the land, not quite ready for things to unravel as fast as they did.

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><p><span>Chapter 1<span>

I rubbed my eyes and threw myself out of bed, raking a hand through my hair as I walked through to the kitchen where I grabbed some breakfast and threw myself into a chair, picking up a book with my free hand and starting to read. No one was awake yet, and for that I was grateful, because living in a house with the amount of people I did, you didn't get much time to just sit down and do your own thing. I usually tried to make a habit of getting up early so that I would have time to myself to have breakfast, and then go for a walk in the warm summer air, as the birds were awakening and the Shire was stirring into life.

I suddenly felt eyes on me and put my book down, looking up to see my cousin Merry in the doorway, smiling at me.

"Good night's sleep, Merry?" I asked him, grinning. I myself had been kept up half the night by a screaming baby cousin and so I guessed this was the same for him.

"Brilliant actually, Will," He grinned back, watching me pull a face at him, "And hey, it's Bilbo's eleventy first birthday tonight! Are you coming to the fields with me and Pippin later? We're gonna organise something _special_ for him."

"Oh god, this doesn't have anything to do with Gandalf's fireworks, does it?" I asked him.

"How do you know? God, Pip can't keep his mouth shut for two minutes!" he laughed, going into the kitchen, ripping off a chunk of bread and sticking it into his mouth.

"Right, I'm going for a walk, I'll see you and Pip in the fields in a couple of hours, okay?"

I heard another bedroom door open and so quickly rushed out the front before anyone could bustle me in for a day's worth of chores and making food for the party. Instead, I walked along the path that connected our house to many of the others in the Shire, in the opposite direction of The Green Dragon. Instead of following the path around, I cut off by the big tree and dodged under a bush, finding myself by the river where I had come not two weeks ago with Merry, Pippin, Frodo and Sam.

We had taken ourselves down there to catch some fish, but had ended up with nothing to bring home except sopping wet clothes and grins plastered to our faces. It was much the same any time we were given something to do, particularly Pip and Merry, and it wouldn't actually get done at all.

Most of the Shire girls laughed at the fact I was always with the boys, as they helped wash the clothes and sew garments and did all of the house chores, and in their spare time they braided their hair with flowers and compared dresses, but I had never been like one of the other girls. I did the same jobs that the boys did, going out to work on the fields, catching fish, fixing up houses, and not because I was particularly strong or male in stature, but purely because I preferred their company.

I heard a noise behind me and turned around to see Pippin sat with his back resting on a rock, pipe in his mouth, smiling at me. I pulled my feet out of the river where I had been dangling them I walked over to him, grinning back, "Smoking already? The suns hardly risen, Pip."

"You want some?" he reached into his back pocket for some pipeweed, but I shook my head, "Nah, it's okay, I don't have my pipe on me anyway."

He grinned, "I always have my pipe on me."

He puffed on it and tried to form a smoke ring with his mouth, but instead ended up spluttering with smoke coming out of his nose. I laughed and took the pipe from him while he coughed, puffing on it myself and blowing the smoke upwards. I watched the wisps rise slowly into the blue sky and fade away, becoming nothing.

"Beautiful day, isn't it?" I commented.

He took the pipe back and inhaled again, looking across the river at the woods where the birds were starting to flit about, calling to each other and swooping down towards the ground to pull worms for their breakfast. The river ran past quietly, a pleasant noise in the background of the day.

"I suppose it is. And so it should be, what with Bilbo's party later!" he stood up, laying his pipe down on the rock and started to dance, taking my hands and pulling me around in a crazy jig.

I exploded with laughter, still being pulled around by Pip. He started singing an old Hobbit song in a high pitched girl voice, curtseying and twirling me around until suddenly I lost my balance and screeched, falling backwards and landing in the river. Pippin doubled over with laughter, and I yelled, pulling at his arm until he toppled into the river as well.

I looked at him and grinned, starting to laugh as well, as we both attempted to gain our footing in the fast flowing river. Although it was a relatively warm summer morning, the water was freezing and my clothes stuck to me like a second, very wet skin. Pippin clambered out of the river and then held out his hand for me to take. I did so and he pulled me out of the river, and for a second we both stood quite still, our eyes locked on each others, until he started to laugh again, walking back over to the rock and sitting down.

"I better go and put something else on before I freeze," I said, rolling my eyes at Pip but unable to stop from laughing again, "Merry invited me to meet you at the field later with him, if that's okay with you..."

"Of course it is, Will!" he said, picking his pipe up and relighting it.

"I'll see you then." I beamed, and ran back off towards our smial to get changed, and probably be forced into helping make something or other for the party later.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Oh god I just feel this whole thing is incredibly cringy and awful, and yet I upload it anyway...I am also painfully aware that about half way through I started writing in the style of Tolkein, and I blame that on the fact that I'm reading The Fellowship of the Ring at the moment...but oh god, please don't kill me too much. I tried to edit it to sound a bit more normal, but...generally not happy with this chapter. I promise it'll get better.**

Chapter 2

I hated wearing dresses. I acknowledged it was an important day, being Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday, and Frodo's coming of age, but to me that did not equal wearing a dress. To my mother however, it did. After returning to the smial dripping wet, she bustled me into the house, complaining about me 'not putting in my fair share', and after half an hour, managed to get me into a semi-okay looking dress. I still wasn't happy about it, but if I wanted to get out at all today before the party then I had to put up with it.

Either way, I was made to help with the taking of food down to the field near Bag End as it was ready, I was sent to different hobbits houses to deliver messages, and by the time I managed to escape from the errands I couldn't find Merry or Pippin anywhere in the fields, and so reluctantly trundled back home.

Thankfully everything that needed doing had been done, and so while mother finished taking the last of the food down, I was told to go down to the party field with my little brother Fosco as it was already getting into the swing of things, with some people having been there for hours already.

It wasn't until a couple of hours later that I saw Merry and managed to get away from telling the little children stories of dragons, most of which I had heard from Frodo, of which he had heard from Bilbo, and so were probably very vague and clumsy on details. Merry laughed as he took me away from them and off to where he had been sat with Pippin.

Pippin stood up and grinned, pulling me into a hug, "You look beautiful!"

"Oh hush." I said laughing, hoping my cheeks hadn't turned too red.

Merry nudged me, laughing, "He's right, you know. You scrub up okay!"

"Oh well thanks!" I shook my head, joining in with the laughter and picking up a glass of ale from the table.

Another couple of hours passed with much merriment and dancing, chatting to other hobbits, greeting Frodo and Bilbo and eating of course, until the sun began to set and the day became night. Merry and Pippin looked at each other and nodded, and stood up grinning sneaking off into the shadows, pulling me along with them. They came around to the tents where the 'backstage' section of the party was happening. Pippin was already exploring around the back of the tents, babbling away to Merry.

"I saw him put them somewhere around here, and I know it was near the food tent." He said.

Gandalf was starting to set off some fireworks, much to the delight of the children. The silver star-like light twinkled in the sky before raining down on the fields quite harmlessly.

"We're missing the fireworks." I told them, but neither were listening to me.

"Here!" Pippin suddenly exclaimed, and Merry gave him a leg up into the cart of Gandalf's fireworks.

The two of them decided on the biggest firework there and then went back into one of the tents, Merry taking out a match to light it. I rolled my eyes and stepped back a step or two while the two of them suddenly realised how unstable it was.

Suddenly it went up with an insane roar, along with the tent, and blasted in the sky in an explosion of orange sparks. They then all came together and formed a huge dragon, which swooped across the fields, causing all of the hobbits to duck out of the way of its huge wings. As it spluttered and disappeared there was much applause from everyone, and Merry and Pippin looked at each other and then me with great excitement, as if they had accomplished something massive, which was also shown on their faces by the soot and smoke. As Gandalf approached I made my swift exit around the side of the tent, back into the party before I could get caught up in the blame.

I managed to find Frodo amongst the crowd who pulled me up onto a table laughing, and took me by the hands, dancing around to some cheery music being played by several drunken hobbits down below. I grinned and laughed with him, hitching my skirts up so that my trousers underneath became visible, much to the disapproval of the other hobbit girls who were near.

Then Bilbo clapped his hands and everyone fell silent so he could give his grand speech. He rattled off praises of hobbits and what this day meant to him, and then ever so suddenly he became strange. Strange for Bilbo, that is. And then he vanished, as if into thin air, and the whole thing was terribly odd. All the hobbits seemed very perplexed by this but Frodo the most seemed bothered, if not very worried by it, and soon disappeared from the party.

This was not the day that brought the change of my life, and indeed a few of us from the Shire's, but it marked the start of it, and so this is why I mention it now. It was the last time that Bilbo was seen by any of the hobbits in the Shire, and it was the day that Frodo was given the ring by him, or so he tells us.

I cannot tell you much more of this day, or at least anything interesting concerning the story, for I did consider going to see if Frodo was okay, but on my way past Bag End I saw Gandalf's stick in the door, and I knew that if anyone should speak to Frodo at this time it should be him.

It wasn't until a good while later that the story really begins.


End file.
